A specific mechanism within community evolution where the fitness of the entire group, not just individuals, becomes the primary unit of selection. Communities with traits that enhance cooperation, resource sharing, and collective defense outcompete or out-survive more selfish or disorganized groups, even if those traits come at a cost to individual members. The theory asks: do communities evolve because it benefits the individuals, or because some communities are simply better at persisting as wholes?
Example: Military units or firefighting crews operate under Community Selection Theory. The unit that drills for self-sacrifice and flawless coordination (a group-level trait) will survive a battle or fire where a group of individually talented but uncoordinated people would perish. The cohesive group is "selected for," even though the trait (readiness for sacrifice) lowers individual fitness.
by Dumuabzu February 5, 2026
Get the Community Selection Theory mug.Blank Selection is a term instituted by Wendy Beach (Editor-in-Chief, Wild Whispers Poetry Magazine) to replace the common ableist “blind selection” label still in use (referring to anonymous editorial processes), and is retained as no alternative terminology currently exists. Blank Selection as a new term replaces the ableist “blind selection” practice, where judges assess poems without knowing poets’ names. The name consciously parallels blank verse’s liberation from formalist restrictions, extending this ethos to combat restrictive language in editorial processes.
by Windy Beach April 16, 2025
Get the Blank Selection mug.The act of doing something really stupid, and facing severe consequences because of it such as injury or worse.
Person 1: Dude, have you heard about Tom??? He broke his leg after he tried to use a skateboard on a a trampoline!
Person 2: Pfft, that's just natural selection to be honest.
Person 2: Pfft, that's just natural selection to be honest.
by Rubelmans September 22, 2025
Get the Natural selection mug.The application of Darwin's core principles—variation, heredity, and differential survival—explicitly to communities as super-organisms. It argues that environmental pressures (climate, war, economic competition) naturally select for communities with the most adaptive bundles of institutions, technologies, and social norms. Communities that fail to adapt disintegrate or are absorbed. This frames history as the natural selection of social organisms.
Community Natural Selection Theory Example: Ancient Mesopotamian city-states that developed writing and codified law (adaptive traits) outcompeted and absorbed neighboring tribal societies that relied on oral tradition. Their social "organism" was more fit for complex administration and trade. This Community Natural Selection led to the dominance of a new, more complex community form.
by Dumuabzu February 5, 2026
Get the Community Natural Selection Theory mug.The study of the messy, often non-rational process by which one paradigm wins over its rivals. Kuhn argued this isn't a simple logic puzzle; it involves persuasion, generational change, aesthetic preference ("elegance"), problem-solving promise, and the death of old-guard professors. Truth doesn't automatically win; the winning paradigm defines what counts as truth for the next era.
Theory of Paradigm Selection Example: Plate tectonics didn't win the paradigm war in geology just because it had better data. It won through paradigm selection: young geographers were dazzled by its elegant maps, it solved puzzles across sub-fields (seismology, paleontology), and, crucially, its elderly opponents in the "fixed continent" paradigm eventually retired. The social process of science selected the new reality.
by Abzugal Nammugal Enkigal February 6, 2026
Get the Theory of Paradigm Selection mug.Refers to da random meal-choice dat ya make in cases where you aren't familiar wif da types of offerings at a particular restaurant, often due to either da diner's being foreign-cuisine themed (i.e., Italian, Chinese, Hawaiian, etc.) or your not being accustomed to eating out in da fist place, and so instead of either asking yer friend who's treating you to choose "something tasty" for you or puzzling over da laminated dinner-options folder yerself, you just "enter default mode" or "go old school" by simply looking around at what meals other patrons are gleefully stuffing their cheeks wif, and then asking da waiter to serve you some of whatever dish looks/smells da best on said other folks' table.
My warm-natured tomboy friend Desiree took me out to dinner at a Mexican restaurant as a thank-you reward for my being such a helpfully-supportive friend to her; I wasn't accustomed to dat type of "savory 'n' spicy" fare, however, so I just observed a number of fellow diners' partaking of similar copiously-steaming and delicious-aromaed offerings, and then after my friend had ordered, I made a copycat menu-selection when asked which dish I wanted for myself.
by QuacksO December 31, 2025
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